Conventionally, a spotlight type illumination device is used in a show window or a museum to illuminate an object. In this illumination device, an LED or the like capable of emitting light at high efficiency has been extensively used. In recent years, there is known an illumination device which uses, as a light source, a semiconductor laser capable of emitting light at higher efficiency and higher output power than the LED (see, e.g., Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2014-175126 (JP2014-175126A)).
The illumination device disclosed in JP2014-175126A includes a light source configured to emit laser light and a plurality of light emitting units. Each of the light emitting units includes a linear light guide body having an incidence surface on which the laser light emitted from the light source is incident and an emission surface from which the incident laser light is emitted. The light source and each of the light emitting units are connected by an optical fiber. The laser light emitted from the light source is transmitted to each of the light emitting units through the optical fiber. Furthermore, the respective light emitting units are configured such that they can be disposed in a linear shape, a curve line shape or a bend line shape on a unit-by-unit basis.
Meanwhile, there is a spotlight type illumination device in which the installation position of a lighting appliance can be arbitrarily selected depending on the arrangement of an object to be irradiated with illumination light. However, in the illumination device disclosed in JP2014-175126A, the position of each of the light emitting units (lighting appliances) is fixed with respect to the light source for emitting laser light. It is therefore impossible to arbitrarily select the installation positions of the light emitting units depending on the use environment of the illumination device.